Is it possible to allow a JasperReports/JasperReports Server end user to write data back to the source database? For example, if a user is viewing a report that lists customer information, could the report be designed to allow the user to edit or write to a database field, such as a "Notes" field?
In general the answer to this is no - it's a reporting tool. If you have Jasperserver embedded into your web app you could have an html form which allows writing to the db and you may be able to link this to a report manually. If you really wanted to hack something together you could probably use a hyperlink to the backend and pass the note in as a parameter but this isn't what the tool is designed to do.
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I am searching for a form builder that completes the following requirement.
It should have API to handle form submission. Meaning I can submit data from an API as well, mainly for bulk entries as selecting multiple values and pressing submit button takes a lot of time. So a way through which we can either import some csv/xlsx file into the database directly. Let me explain this situation, suppose I am a manager and I have to evaluate 5 staff members on 15 skill levels. This means that I will have to click on submit button and wait for page refresh for 5 * 15 = 75 times and not just that, I will have to select the same values multiple times. This is a huge interface problem. In short a tabular form in which if I have to create a new entry I will press a button "Add New Row" or Delete the current row and once I am done with this tabular form, I will press the submit button once and my time & data will be saved.
Also API's for getting the stored data so I can use this data for other purposes as well like Visualizing with Microsoft Power BI.
It should also be able to create some reports from that data or have Microsoft Power BI connectors so I can generate reports from that myself. Jotforms creates reports based on the submitted form data. Form.io provides API for accessing the submitted data
It should have a feature for creating resources. Example:- As a form creator I don't want to be manually entering all my staff member names or skills into the dropdown, instead this should come dynamically. Form.io does that.
Also the forms and reports must be protected from SSO.
What I have done so far?
Tried form.io which gives me the ability to create resources and forms. The ability to access and store data through API. But the problem is I cannot submit multiple records with one POST request and it also has no feature of creating reports
Tried JotForms which can create promising reports but there is no
functionality to create resources and access those into other forms.
Tried Custom Tool but this will take a lot of time in development, testing, reviews so I want to opt for an already crafted and maintained by an enterprise tool.
Every Suggestion is Appreciated.
I often need to create similar, but very long HTML forms for a client. The forms contain some inter-dependent fields and lot of validations. Some images also need to be uploaded.
Then the client needs to check the database in the CPanel and export it from there.
I want to create something with easy interface which can create complicated forms. Also, client is asking for easy-to-operate back end. The CMS option looks like an overkill. I want to keep the site as lightweight as possible because of performance requirement.
Please suggest me the best path I should take. Should I try to develop everything from scratch? Should I use a CMS? Is there any particular CMS more suitable for the task?
We use ChronoForms along with Joomla 3.1 to create such forms. It has two modes, an easier one that limits the functionality but creation of forms is much easier. The other one offers the full capabilities of the engine but requires manual steps to do even simple things.
Having said that, ChronoForms is the most powerful web based forms designer I have come across. It seems they also support Wordpress now.
They have a drag-drop mechanism to design the forms. Validations are easy to do via check boxes for the standard ones. You can save the results into database tables, send emails, redirect users to specific pages, add captchas.
The backend allows you to view the records and create new tables based on the fields of the form. You can also export the result as CSV.
We have a number of customers that we have to send monthly invoices too. Right now, I'm managing a codebase that does SQL queries against our customer database and billing database and places that data into emails - and sends it.
I grow weary of maintaining this every time we want to include a new promotion or change our customer service phone numbers. So, I'm looking for a replacement to move more of this into the hands of those requesting the changes.
In my ideal world, I need :
A WYSIWYG (man, does anyone even say that anymore?) email editor that generates templates based upon the output from a Database Query.
The ability to drag and drop various fields from the database query into the email template.
Display of sample email results with the database query.
Web application, preferably not requiring IIS.
Involve as little code as possible for the end-user, but allow basic functionality (i.e. arrays/for loops)
Either comes with it's own email delivery engine, or writes output in a way that I can easily write a Python script to deliver the email.
Support for generic Database Connectors. (I need MSSQL and MySQL)
F/OSS
So ... can anyone suggest a project like this, or some tools that'd be useful for rolling my own?
(My current alternative idea is using something like ERB or Tenjin, having them write the code, but not having live-preview for the editor would suck...)
I think your looking for a reporting tool which is also capable of sending email. Sending a generared report in html or pdf shouldn't be to hard to do as well.
I've used JasperReports in the past for which I think it should fit your needs.
Another good solution is the pentaho reporting tool
You could easily write something on your own.. give them a basic edit control and allow them to use psuedo variables like {customername} {anothercustomerattribute} within the mail body.
On submit either send directly or save as template.
When the template is sent away the script automatically parses stuff like {customername} into the real customers name from the database.
Your own very very simple custom scriptlanguage :)
Everything else like loops and so on would be maintained on serverside. And if you want particular groups of customers to receive the letter, allow the enduser to select from selectboxes or whatever and do the rest on the serverside with pre-defined rules.
I'm trying to make a page with 2 fields (email and feedback) and 1 button. When the user clicks on the button, a table on a page else where is filled in with the data, permanently.
Does anyone have recommendations of how I should do this? I'd like to avoid having a script send me an email, or writing to a database. But if I have to, which ever is easier to configure would be prefered.
Thanks,
Matt
So you want a comments system like you find on most blogs? You'll need to store those comments somewhere, probably in a database. As for how to do it, that would depend entirely on what you already know and what the site is currently written in. You could use PHP and MySql if you already have those skills, or ASP.Net/SQL Server, or if you want to be down with the cool kids you can use Ruby on Rails or Python/Django.
If you post what languages you already have experience in, and/or what the site is written in you might get a more specific answer :-)
There're 2 types of scripts: server side and client side. The client side script (JavaScript) stores info only for particular visitor on his computer and this can't be seen by anybody else.
You need a server side script to save feedback on the server. The language or technology depends on the hosting server you use. Not all hosting services allows server side scripts. You need first to find out what scripting languages and technologies are supported by your hosting provider. Then we can help you more.
ADD:
For an unexperienced persons I recommend to search for hosting services which has most needed functionality. Something like blogs, etc. On such services you could create pages that will have comments and feedback and many more.
While it may seem outdated it's not necessarily a bad design. You can use PHP or Perl (due to it's string parsing capabilities) and simply store the main page on the disk.
Here's your sudo code/design...
You'll need need an html page that looks as follows
<tr><td>email</td><td>comment 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>email 2</td><td>comment 2</td></tr>
<tr><td>email 3</td><td>comment 3</td></tr>
Then you'll need a php script page that will read this html file in and display it.
The php page will also contain code for dealing with a user submitted comment. When a user posts a comment you need to open the html page with the rows in it and append to that file.
You need to be careful with this design however because you may run into write concurrency issues if two people attempt to read the file at the same time. Add code to handle this gracefully accordingly.
I have Lotus Notes application, deployed only as modifications (new forms, views, and adding a button to one of the "standard" views) in the main mail template (R7).
All these "new" forms and views are inherited in turn from my main application template.
Now, for one of these forms to function properly, it have to have a field, which is different from customer (not end user, but organization) to customer.
I do not want to break the inheritance from our template, so we can update the application easily by just sending a new template. So, I can't ask the client admin just to break the inheritance for this particular form, as it will stop all updates (or they have to be done manually).
So, let's say I have MainAppForm, which has a calculated field ClientCustomData. I'd like to have another form, which only has only one "default" field ClientCustomData. I can break the inheritance for this second form, as it has no really design elements which may change, and then the client can modify this default value to whatever they need w/o fearing that it'll be overwritten.
The question is - how from MainAppForm I can read the value from the other form?
Or - is there a way to store 2 data elements only in a mail template (I dunno, shared file, or something), so it becomes available to each user, and MainAppForm can get them, w/o a need to remove the inheritance dependency of MainAppForm from our template.
I can envision even a class library with just to functions to return this (I don't know why this approach smells to me).
Any best practices or advices?
I'm not sure if I have understood your querstion correctly, but it sounds like you want to have a small part of a larger form configurable per client. If this is the case, I think computed subforms could do the trick.
Consider the following scenario: Your application ships with the subform ClientCustomData that contains just sensible defaults for the client settings. The form MainAppForm includes this as a computed subform. It is then possible for the local admin to disable inheritance on the subform and changing the custom data without affecting inheritance on MainAppForm.
The obvious drawback is that you cannot update the ClientCustomData subform automatically once inheritance is disabled; Keep this subform as small as possible. If you find that you need more client-custom values, you can always add another subform in the same manner.
First a clarification: In Lotus Notes, you don't have forms reading from other forms. Forms are just UI objects. However, you do have back-end and front-end documents that get created with the help of Forms.
When you create a new document based on a form (for instance, a new email), you are creating a front-end document that hasn't been saved yet. That document can access other parts of itself or it can access any back-end document that has been saved.
If I'm following you correctly, you need some bit of data that is different per client/customer to be brought into documents based on MainAppForm. There are a few ways to do that. My suggestion is to use Database Profiles, which are special documents that can easily be accessed from anywhere in your database via Notes Formula language or LotusScript. Granted, you can't push data within those documents out via a template, but if you use a database profile to store your database settings your client admin can set options once and they won't get altered when the template changes.
Have a look at the #SetProfileField and #GetProfileField functions.
To answer my own question (still I do not know if I'm right in terms of Notes way of thinking, but looks promising):
I found the "Shared fields". So, I create 2 such a fields with a computed values (the ones I want to pass on), and make my MainAppForm use them. Upon installation, the admin will change the values and mark them to not refresh with the template.
I'd respect any pros and cons, provided from a Notes expert.
Thanks